NEW CHRONOLOGICAL INFORMATION FROM RADIOCARBON DATING OF HUMAN REMAINS AT JACOB’S WELL, NABLUS, PALESTINE

Radiocarbon ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Loay Abu Alsaud ◽  
Amer Al-Qobbaj ◽  
Mohammad Al-Khateeb ◽  
Alfonso Fanjul Peraza
Keyword(s):  
Contextual Information ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Greek Orthodox Church ◽  
The City ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACT Jacob’s Well, located in modern city of Nablus and ancient Shechem (Tall Balata) in the northern West Bank of Palestine, attracts modern day tourists and pilgrims. It is found in the eastern suburbs of the city. Since 333 AD, pilgrims have been writing accounts of the well, and it has been venerated by both Christian and Jewish communities throughout its history. It is believed to be the well referred to in the New Testament, where Jesus conversed with a Samaritan woman, the orthodox saint, Photini. It now forms the central feature in the crypt of the St Photini Greek Orthodox church in the walled grounds of a monastery. In order to gain more information on the chronology of the site, we analyzed human skeletal remains found at the site in 1997. These consist of three skulls and a femur. One of the skulls was found in a sarcophagus alongside the church and the two other skulls and a femur were found in a burial ground alongside the monastery, north of the church, over which a room has now been built. Radiocarbon analysis reveals that the remains date to four historical periods or events: the early Christian period, before structural additions to the well by Constantine the Great in the fourth century; the Samaritan Revolts (AD 529 and 556), the Sassanid Invasion (AD 614–628), and Abbasid rule (AD 750–1258). Dating of one skull suggests it may have been that of Germanus, a fourth century bishop of Nablus, and that there may have been a very early structure, shrine, or burial chamber at the site before the fourth century. We provide contextual information based on historical and contemporary literature.

scholarly journals The Iconography of the Sarcophagus in S. Ambrogio. Hope for Salvation through the Word of Christ

1970 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 283-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olaf Steen
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
City Gates ◽  
The City ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

The sarcophagus in the church of S. Ambrogio in Milan is dated to about 390. The lid of the sarcophagus shows scenes and symbols connected to the New Testament. On the front and rear sides, we find Christ represented among the Apostles. Figures from the Old Testament are shown on the two short sides. In this way, the narrative scenes are well arranged, and the arrangement differs from other early Christian sarcophagi in which scenes from the Old and New Testament are places together without any apparent connection between the scenes. Rows of city-gates run around all four sides, forming the background for the reliefs. The city-gates invite the beholder to read the images not as isolated scenes, but as parts of a connected whole. In this paper, I will argue that the iconography of the sarcophagus can be interpreted as a complete programme. The programme emphasizes the teaching of Christ and the Apostles’ teaching-mission given by Christ. Taking into consideration the monument’s funerary context, the programme of the sarcophagus focuses on the Word or the teaching of Christ as the way to salvation.

The Fourth Century Greek Fathers as Exegetes

1957 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-105
Author(s):  
W. Telfer
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Primary Meaning ◽  
Greek Orthodox Church ◽  
Academic Theology ◽  
Patristic Exegesis

Not long ago, an English New Testament teacher was pressed by a Russian theologian for a straight answer to the question, “Do you teach your students to interpret the New Testament according to the Fathers?” The answer could hardly be Yes. In most Western Universities it would be rare to find references to patristic exegesis in lectures on the Old or New Testaments. So a chasm was disclosed between academic theology as it is understood in the Eastern Orthodox world and its counterpart in the West. It is as big a chasm as any that gapes, doctrinally or ecclesiastically, between the Western Christian denominations and the various branches of the Eastern Church. For the Orthodox, patristic exegesis affords a sure safeguard of right Christian belief, so that the task of the academic theologian is to teach that exegesis. He is not so readily concerned about the primary meaning of the text of Scripture; that is to say, about the meaning it had in the minds of the writers, and that they looked for it to have for their immediate readers. Dr. Zankov, speaking for the Greek Orthodox Church, says, “The Holy Scriptures serve us as a source. The liturgical books, and writings of the Church Fathers, are, so to speak, the rule and line of ecclesiastical consciousness. In both of these the heart and spirit of Orthodoxy are reflected.” This Orthodox concept of Scripture has roots that run back to the first days of Greek Christianity.

The Roman Martyrs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lapidge
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Church

The Roman Martyrs contains translations of forty Latin passiones of saints who were martyred in Rome or its near environs, during the period before the ‘peace of the Church’ (c. 312). Some of these Roman martyrs are universally known — SS. Agnes, Sebastian or Laurence, for example — but others are scarcely known outside the ecclesiastical landscape of Rome itself. Each of the translated passiones, which vary in length from a few paragraphs to over ninety, is accompanied by an individual introduction and commentary; the translations are preceded by an Introduction which describes the principal features of this little-known genre of Christian literature. The Roman passiones martyrum have never previously been collected together, and have never been translated into a modern language. They were mostly composed during the period 425 x 675, by anonymous authors who who were presumably clerics of the Roman churches or cemeteries which housed the martyrs’ remains. It is clear that they were composed in response to the huge explosion of pilgrim traffic to martyrial shrines from the late fourth century onwards, at a time when authentic records (protocols) of their trials and executions had long since vanished, and the authors of the passiones were obliged to imagine the circumstances in which martyrs were tried and executed. The passiones are works of pure fiction; and because they abound in ludicrous errors of chronology, they have been largely ignored by historians of the early Church. But although they cannot be used as evidence for the original martyrdoms, they nevertheless allow a fascinating glimpse of the concerns which animated Christians during the period in question: for example, the preservation of virginity, or the ever-present threat posed by pagan practices. And because certain aspects of Roman life will have changed little between (say) the second century and the fifth, the passiones throw valuable light on many aspects of Roman society, not least the nature of a trial before an urban prefect, and the horrendous tortures which were a central feature of such trials. Above all, perhaps, the passiones are an indispensable resource for understanding the topography of late antique Rome and its environs, since they characteristically contain detailed reference to the places where the martyrs were tried, executed, and buried. The book contains five Appendices containing translations of texts relevant to the study of Roman martyrs: the Depositio martyrum of A.D. 354 (Appendix I); the epigrammata of Pope Damasus d. 384) which pertain to Roman martyrs treated in the passiones (II); entries pertaining to Roman martyrs in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (III); entries in seventh-century pilgrim itineraries pertaining to shrines of Roman martyrs in suburban cemeteries (IV); and entries commemorating these martyrs in early Roman liturgical books (V).

The Greek Orthodox Church in America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Kitroeff
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
The United States ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
American Institution ◽  
Greek Orthodox Church ◽  
Language Schools ◽  
Greek Immigrants ◽  
The Church

This sweeping history shows how the Greek Orthodox Church in America has functioned as much more than a religious institution, becoming the focal point in the lives of the country's million-plus Greek immigrants and their descendants. Assuming the responsibility of running Greek-language schools and encouraging local parishes to engage in cultural and social activities, the church became the most important Greek American institution and shaped the identity of Greeks in the United States. The book digs into these traditional activities, highlighting the American church's dependency on the “mother church,” the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the use of Greek language in the Sunday liturgy. Today, as this rich biography of the church shows us, Greek Orthodoxy remains in between the Old World and the New, both Greek and American.

Church and Patriarchate and the Limits of Americanization

2020 ◽  
pp. 228-246
Author(s):  
Alexander Kitroeff
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
New Era ◽  
Greek Orthodox Church ◽  
The Church

This chapter focuses on the state of Greek Orthodoxy in America at the end of the twentieth century. It assesses whether the Church under Archbishop Iakovos overreached in its efforts to Americanize, which alienated the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It analyzes the patriarchate's intervention, which illustrated the administrative limits the Greek Orthodox Church in America faces in its efforts to assimilate. The chapter describes the patriarchate's ability to invoke the transnational character of Orthodoxy in the new era of globalization. It explores the end of the evolution of Greek Orthodoxy into some form of American Orthodoxy through its fusion with the other Eastern Orthodox Churches.

scholarly journals Syria

2019 ◽  
pp. 409-429
Author(s):  
Emma Loosley
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
House Church ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Ecclesiastical Authority ◽  
Civic Leadership ◽  
The Church ◽  
Christian Society

Syria occupies a unique place in early Christian archaeology by virtue of the fact that Antioch was the first city where followers of Jesus Christ were referred to as “Christians” and because it is the country in which the only securely dated house church has ever been discovered. Away from the Holy Land and the events of Christ’s life, and the establishment of ecclesiastical authority in Rome and Constantinople, Syria’s significance to archaeologists of Christianity lies in what the country can tell us about the daily lives of early believers. In the hinterland of Antioch hundreds of villages dating to the first seven centuries ce attest to a fully Christian society from the second half of the fourth century onward, and they offer us valuable information about how the church supplanted the state as the source of moral and civic leadership.

The ‘Dosografa’ church in the treaty of Küçük Kaynarca

1979 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-52
Author(s):  
Roderic H. Davison
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Greek Orthodox Church ◽  
Turkish Text ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church

By the treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774, which marked a disastrous defeat of the Ottoman empire by Russia, the Russians were accorded the right to build a church in Istanbul, in the Galata quarter. The treaty further specified that the church was to be under the protection of the Russian minister, who could make representations concerning it to the Sublime Porte. This church, and the Russian right to protect it and to make representations about it, furnished much of the basis on which Russian governments, in later years, built a claim to a broader right to protect the Greek Orthodox Church, even the Greek Orthodox people, in the Sultan's domains. The claims were exaggerated, but since the church in Istanbul was to be ‘of the Greek ritual’, as article 14 of the treaty said, the connexion seemed logical. The Turkish text of the treaty, however, as Cevdet Pasa reproduces it in his history, makes no mention of a church ‘of the Greek ritual’. Instead, his article 14 specifies that this church is to be called the dusugrafa or dosografa church ().

Double Honor: Elite Hutterite Women in the Sixteenth Century

2010 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 753-782 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Darlage
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Early Church ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Church

Studies of early modern Anabaptism have shown that many Anabaptists sought to model their communities after the examples of the New Testament and the early church before the “fall” of the church into a coercive, sword-wielding institution through the person of Constantine in the fourth centuryc.e.The Anabaptists claimed that one had to voluntarily choose to become a Christian through believer's baptism and suffer for his or her faith just as the martyrs of old had done in the face of Roman persecution. During the course of the sixteenth century, their Protestant and Roman Catholic enemies did not disappoint, as hundreds of Anabaptists were executed for their rejection of “Christendom.” To the “magisterial” Christians, Anabaptists were dangerous heretics because they denied the God-given power of spiritual and secular authorities.

scholarly journals The Doctrine of Apostolic Succession in the Church of England

1894 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 171-192
Author(s):  
Henry C. Vedder
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Apostolic Succession ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Church ◽  
Adequate Evidence

A definition of terms is essential at the outset of this investigation, but I am not aware of a definition of Apostolic Succession that would be accepted as authoritative by those who profess the doctrine, In this paper the term will be held to mean the doctrine that the order of bishops exists in the Church jure divino; that the first bishops were ordained by the Apostles as their successors, and that these orders have been transmitted by an unbroken succession to the present time; and furthermore, that without bishops there can be no valid orders, no valid sacraments, in short, no Church. It is not proposed in this paper to question the truth of this theory—to inquire whether there is adequate evidence in its favor either in the Scriptures of the New Testament, in the early Christian literature, or in the institutions of the Church of the first two centuries. Assuming that the doctrine rests on the sure foundations of Scripture teaching and institutional Christianity—or, at least, allowing that this may be the case—our task is to trace the effects of this doctrine upon the external history and internal life of the Church of England.

John Chrysostom on Paul as Founder of Churches

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 303-315
Author(s):  
Chris L. de Wet
Keyword(s):  
Social Protection ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Group Boundaries ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Discursive Formation ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
The Church

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to examine John Chrysostom’s view of Paul as founder of churches. The article is written in dialogue with the research done by James Hanges on Paul as a founder-figure. The study argues that by the fourth century, especially in the works of Chrysostom, we a have a vision of Paul as founder ofthechurch that has become interwoven with the very substance of the (orthodox) church’s subjectivity – a very different dynamic that was present in the first two centuries at least. Being a Christian, being part of the church, for Chrysostom, also means embodying something of the subjectivity of Paul. Paul was more than a hermeneutical bridge between the Old and the New Testament. Paul and Paulinomorphism became the very language of ecclesiastical power, a rhetoric with an impetus on correction, discipline and social protection. The fourth-century Chrysostomic reconstruction of Paul, the founder of churches andthechurch, operated as a central discursive formation in the reproduction of Christian identity. The appellations of Paul as builder, physician and father formed part of an interconnected web of power-language with the capacity to ramify group boundaries and also to pathologize heretical groups. The power-language of Paul also sustained orthodox Christian identity in its curative and corrective measures.

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